GBR Team at French Optimist Nationals at Quiberon, Brittany
by Jane Porter 19 Jul 2006 09:54 BST
8-15 July 2006
Coach Steve Irish together with the British Team at the French Optimist nationals © Jane Porter
A GBR team of 9 young sailors, all boys and most aged 12 or 13, took part in the French Optimist Nationals held this year at Quiberon, Southern Brittany. Sending a British team to this annual national event is a recent initiative by the International Optimist Class Association UK (IOCA) to provide experience of overseas events at an earlier stage in sailors’ careers, and nearly all French youngsters begin their competitive sailing in an Optimist.
The fleet of over 600 was divided into age groups and “divisions”; the British team were all allocated to the senior “Division 1” which numbered approximately 180 sailors and was raced in coloured flights similar to the British Inland and End of Season Championships.
Disappointingly, whilst this side of the Channel enjoyed consistently good winds for most of the week, along the Quiberon peninsula the wind would invariably blow from late evening through to mid morning, but during the day as the temperatures climbed the breeze would die for the entire period when the racing was scheduled. The total number of races was down from a scheduled 9 to 6 allowing only one discard, and in the light and very shifty airs fortunes could change rapidly and unexpectedly during a race.
Spirits remained high throughout and David Grant the youngest British team member came first in the last race of the series winning the honour of the “yellow jersey”. However on the whole the GBR Team never really got going in decent conditions to show their true form. Interestingly many of the top French sailors struggled too, with members of their Worlds and European Teams finishing quite some way down the order.
On the plus side team members who barely knew each other before the trip became firm friends, supporting each other in an impressively mature way, and the entire team were great ambassadors for the UK Optimist Fleet, behaving impeccably throughout.
GBR Team Results (Division One):
17th David Grant
38th Roger Stabbins
63rd Oliver Cooper
73rd Ben Harden
77th Calum Murdock
100th Cameron Douglas
103rd Rory Page
113th Matt Deacon Smith
116th Olly Porter
Other British at the event:
71st Ben Robinson
85th Andrew Lis
110th Sam Robinson